Do not delete discussions about deleted proposals

Question

I can see the reasoning behind deleting closed proposal — if someone proposes the same subject again, they get a fresh start. This isn't completely beneficial though: it leads to repeating the same failed attempts over and over.

We have discussions about proposals, which are far more useful than a list of questions in understanding what may have been good or bad about a past proposal. Unfortunately, when a proposal is deleted, these discussions are deleted as well. So no trace remains of any advice or debate regarding how a subject may or may not be fit for a questions and answers site, what scope would be reasonable, etc.

For example, consider the question How would a Debian-specific stack be different from the existing Unix & Linux site? I think I've answered this very question before (about a prior, now-deleted proposal about Debian), and I'm sure I've answered this questions about other distributions (from memory, Arch Linux and Fedora, but I may be misremembering). But I would have to write the same post yet over again, because all the previous discussions have been deleted.

Please do not delete discussions about deleted proposals. Add a big fat warning if you like, or classify them in a different section, but leave the discussions publicly accessible.

Answer 1

But the people following the discussion on the same theme, but on the different place, will know nothing about THIS one! So, the best would be to join them.

Answer 2

I'm ambivalent. People starting a fresh proposal probably aren't aware of the old one, and so are unlikely to learn from it even if its discussion stayed around. Unless "someone" (ha) points out the old threads. And the old threads are perhaps only useful in some edited form (trawling through 100+ posts to see what the broad points in the previous discussion where is discouraging). If they are cheap to keep around, closed to any change, and Googleable, they might be an asset.